Klarheit
by seven dials
Summary: A companion to 'Nichts Neues', the observer a rather troubled Ken. I saw a lot of similarities between Youji's behavior regarding Neu and Ken's with Kase and wondered what Ken would, with hindsight, make of Youji's actions. One-shot; completed.


**Klarheit**  
A Weiss Kreuz fanfiction by laila

Standard Copyright Disclaimer: Weiss Kreuz, it's characters, indices, and the like remain the property of Kyoko Tsuchiya, Koyasu Takehito, Project Weiss and Movic. I am a fan having fun who means no disrespect to any of these wonderful individuals or companies in writing this, nor do I intend to make any money out of it. Whilst I'm here I'd like to say thanks to Tomokazu Seki who voiced Ken - I'm sure at least part of my Ken fixation stems from his sterling voice work.

Author's Notes: I admit it: 'Trane' fascinates me. This is the second of my fics concentrating on this episode only this time the focus is on Ken, who also fascinates me. Ken doesn't get to do an awful lot in this episode, but one of the things he does do made me think - he asks Youji if he's being set up, interesting when one remembers Ken is hardly one of life's cynics. Thinking about it, I felt there were a lot of parallels between Ken's behavior in 'Verrat' and Youji's in 'Trane'. This fic, therefore, is an exploration of what it might be like to watch someone else making the same potentially fatal mistake you made only a short time earlier. The title, incidentally, means 'Clarity'.

* * *

It's not easy to realize someone you care for is being set up. It's not at all easy to watch them. It's hard to stand back and say nothing and maddening to speak and realize you're not being heard. It gets worse still when you've made the exact same mistake yourself, in front of them, and had to learn from it the hard way. I've learnt and I would have thought watching me misreading all the signs, watching me fuck up, would have been enough for anybody else to learn, too. Seemingly not. Life's never that simple.

I lived it and living it again even at second-hand is an absolute bloody nightmare. Seeing it second-hand then living it, perhaps, feels different.

Not that Youji thinks there's anything to see, of course. He thinks it's special this time. He is not me, she is not him, why should he see the similarities? He wouldn't believe me if I told him the difference is in the detail, never mind that I'm telling the truth. The truth's the last thing he wants to hear.

Youji, hey. Can't you learn from my mistakes instead of doing the same things I did?

If it had been me who was behaving like this I know for a fact Youji would have asked me, in the worryingly stern tone he takes with me when he's pointing something out that he thinks is really important, if I was blind, deaf, stupid or all three at once and what the hell did I think I was doing. If I'd refused to listen he'd have told me that I was being either stubborn or naïve. He'd ask me why the hell I hadn't worked it out the last time. Ultimately he'd make me feel like such a presumptuous idiot I'd have to give in if only to stop him going on at me like he was my dad or something. Why Youji's so good at giving me guilt trips and making me feel stupid I don't know but he is. I hate it when he talks to me like that. He did it with Yuriko, like he could bloody well talk, and if he tries it again I swear to God I'm going to hit someone.

Youji thinks the naïve thing's me all over too. It's getting so I think he might have a point. If someone tells you you're naïve once you can kind of laugh it off, take it as a sort of stupid joke. Well, it's not so easy when you hear the same thing over and over again, even if it is from the same person. That's when things start getting worrying and I'm almost convinced it's how complexes start. Youji thinks I'm naïve and he points it out a lot and it's mainly because he's obsessed with girls to the exclusion of everything else and thinks everyone over the age of eighteen should also be obsessed with girls. Well ex_cuse_ me, Mr. Playboy, can I help it if some of us have other things than women on our minds?

And how come, Youji, that someone supposedly as painfully unworldly as me can see what you can't? If I'm so easy to get one over on and I'm getting suspicious, then why the hell can't you see it too? If I'm really that innocent then it's got to be bloody obvious that you're being conned!

Simply put, if I'd been the one to do something like Youji's doing right now he wouldn't have wasted any time in letting me know I was being a moron. Given the case in point, he'd be completely and utterly right as well. That's if our positions had been reversed, not that they would have been. These days at least I've got more sense than that.

But it's not me. Youji's marking time with Neu. _That_ Neu. Or Asuka, as he calls her.

That's the really strange thing about this. The Asuka angle. I think I'd be less worried about Youji if he'd just developed some weird kind of crush on Neu and wanted to be with her for that reason, not because he thought she was Asuka or had been at some time in the past. Now Asuka Youji's told me about, kind of, though it's normally when he's wasted. I don't know all that much about her and really, I don't like to ask. It's kind of private and even if Youji thinks I'm an idiot I'm not such an idiot I don't know when to lay off. I know she died, though. How come he thinks Neu's Asuka when Asuka died? The more I think about this, the more unlikely it sounds.

Youji's dead ex-girlfriend gets reincarnated as one of Masafumi Takatori's harem of bodyguards and now he's trying to get her to break free of… whatever it is made her forget him. Okay, Youji. Sure. When did we turn into the cast of a really stupid daytime soap and why didn't anybody tell me?

Someone's _got _to be messing us around.

Shit. This entire situation is so-damn-familiar to me it's ridiculous. Call it twenty-twenty hindsight if you like but we've been here already and not that long ago either. I know Youji's riding for a fall because it's all happened once before. I wouldn't know about the lover thing or at least not like Youji does, but surely it can't be much easier to lose a friend?

Youji doesn't seem to remember Kase. I do. I couldn't forget Kase if I tried and that's why I don't like seeing Youji like this. I don't like seeing him trying to recreate something that's dead and gone because it used to be good. You can't repeat the past and you can trust me on this one, Youji. The Asuka you remember is gone even if something that looks like her still lives. She may be standing by your side, she may be talking to you, but Asuka is gone.

(Long before he died, Kase was gone too…)

I understand why he doesn't want to believe that though. Like I said, I've been there. It's simpler to pretend there's nothing wrong when everything is because it's comforting, in a weird kind of way. I know I found it so much easier, with Kase, to try and slip back into old routines and utterly ignore how strange it felt to be round him. That'll be what Youji's doing, I'm sure. Neu, Asuka, whoever she is, she'll be leaving him with an impression that's somehow kind of off and yet he won't let himself notice. I didn't let myself notice it with Kase - why should Youji be any different? He'll see what he wants to like I did.

He won't notice although it's obvious. That's what twenty-twenty hindsight does for you, I suppose. Looking back it's as if… well, it's hard to put into words the way that being with Kase made me feel. At the time I either couldn't or wouldn't notice it but retrospectively it's self-evident - self-evident, if hard to explain to anyone else without it coming out sounding really lame. It was as if he was pretending to be himself. He was putting on an act for my benefit. As if… well, almost as if he was an actor in role and he were playing the part of Kouichirou Kase for a time, whilst he was with me. As if he were saying, this is how it was, Ken, and I won't let you notice that it's any different now.

(Because if you do you'll realize what you've heard is true and it's the memory that is a lie.)

That was it, wasn't it? In the end, Kase tried too hard to be someone he wasn't any longer and that was what felt so wrong. We were both different people. He'd changed and yet he was trying to play down those changes, for my sake but if I'd met him and everything had been right he wouldn't have done. He might not have gloried in them but he wouldn't have pretended his life _hadn't_ changed and nor would I. I'm not going to claim I was any better. I had my own reasons for clinging to what was, pretending I was still the same thoughtless, lively kid he grew up with and who used to play alongside him…

But Kase wasn't being open with me and I wasn't treating him any differently. We'd both changed and for the both of us it was a change for the worse. I used to think it would be better if he really had died back there, in the warehouse. Now, I guess, I think it would be better still if we both had… or even if only _I_ had. I don't like thinking like that but whether I like it or not there's a lot of truth in it.

Why put on such a show for someone you thought was doomed to die, Kase? I don't understand that part of it at all. He thought that I was going to die. What did it matter if I died believing in him or not? Was he giving himself some kind of get-out clause? It doesn't make sense and I doubt it ever will.

And now, of course, Kase really _is_ dead. He's dead and his blood is on my hands and it couldn't have been any way but this. Him or me, me or him… we couldn't both have lived on as we are now. It was inevitable, painfully inevitable that it would turn out like this, as he chose life with Creeper and I turned to Kritiker and Weiss. I chose my path and Kase chose his. It'd be nice to think we did so clear-eyed but neither of us could manage that. Takatori was using Creeper and, somewhere along the line, I guess I'm being used too though I'm damned if I know what for.

He died and so did I, in a way. I don't quite know what it is but something about me died with Kase and I can't get it back.

Worse than that, every memory I had of him, every single moment I shared with him, has been tainted by the way it ended. I can't think of Kase at all without remembering I murdered him. I can't even think of him as a child without wondering, was everything a lie? When did he first start to hate me, when did it all turn sour? For how long was he playing me for a fool? It's enough to drive me crazy, trying to work out when it went wrong and what I did, or didn't do, that made the end inevitable. Everything I ever did with Kase leads only to the single moment when it came down to my life or his - one or the other, never both.

Kase tried to kill me so I murdered him. That's how it ends. An instant in time and everything I had of him is tainted as irrevocably as if it were stained with his blood. If it had been the other way round and he had killed me, what would he have felt? Would he even have cared? Sometimes I'll admit I know the answer and it hurts like crazy. That doesn't stop me missing him, though. Nothing will stop me missing him…

Hell is here, Kase. It's with me and in me.

That's one of the reasons why I want Youji to leave Neu well alone, why I want to grab him by the collar and scream _back off_! at him. Let Asuka's memory be. Even if this girl is Asuka, it's not worth it. If I'm right and Neu's playing with you, you'll lose more than her as a person. You'll lose everything you ever had of her, Youji, like I lost Kase.

But I can't make him hear and I certainly can't smack any sense into him. He's taller, stronger, he's already hit me for suggesting he was being set up once and he was serious about it. That hurt but his lack of trust hurt more. He won't hear anything said against Neu, not from any of us. He'd take Neu's word over mine any day regardless of that fact that I'm only trying to help him see sense whereas she… I don't know what that woman thinks she's doing, fuck it! Still, I hope for his sake I'm wrong about this. I'd rather be wrong.

God, will you look at me. Telling Omi not to think too hard about this then harping on it myself. What the hell am I like? Still, I'm worried. Worried he'll do something stupid, worried he might not come back, that I've fucked things up for all time and he won't want anything to do with us any more. Just plain worried about _him_. Youji's annoying as all-get-out half the time but isn't he a friend? If I wasn't worried I wouldn't be human and I certainly wouldn't be me.

He just won't listen. Like I wouldn't listen. I'd be more annoyed about his smacking me one if I didn't know why he'd done it. Sure I didn't go so far as to try and punch Manx's lights out for telling me, in almost as many words, that I was wasting my time on Kase but I didn't want to hear it either. I guess that was because I knew, deep down, that what Manx and the others were saying was true all along. If I hadn't known on some level that I was being fooled then Kase would have killed me first. I played the game too, in my own way, but that I did so at all was, perhaps, another kind of betrayal.

_Surely_ it should be obvious to Youji, if only from my bloody _appalling_ example, that it's not as simple as oh look, here's Asuka, let's carry on from where we left off!

Youji chose life as Weiss too, where Neu - Asuka, if she is Asuka (is she Asuka?) - chose the Takatoris. God knows what possessed her to choose them but it could well be that the decision was hers alone. For Youji's sake I'd like to believe she was forced into it, or drawn into it, but I really don't know if I can. I believed it with Kase but you can't fool the same person in the same way twice unless they're a lot more credulous than I could everno. This'd be the third time. Shit. Maybe Youji's right about the naïve thing.

I'd like to believe Asuka is different. I'd like to tell myself Youji knows her well enough not to be taken in but I can't. Didn't I know Kase, or imagine that I did? It wasn't like I only met him six months before the first betrayal. I'd known him for years and it didn't change a bloody thing except to make the break harder. I believed in Kase because I thought I knew him better than everyone else. Youji believes in Asuka, in Neu - and I don't even know what to _call_ the woman! - because he thinks he knows her better than…

You don't, Youji. All the evidence says you don't.

(Oh, _sure_. What a stunningly brilliant argument, Hidaka! All the evidence points toward a truth Youji doesn't want to believe: that Asuka is Neu isn't the woman he wants her to be. He won't listen to that and you know it, you idiot! No wonder he's ignoring the lot of it. Yeah, that sounds too familiar. I wouldn't accept that Kase was a murderer until the day he presented me with clear proof that he was, then confirmed it beyond all reasonable doubt by trying to kill me too.)

Maybe he knew her once but not any more. I don't think that she's Asuka any more, if she even was to begin with. She might be a stranger with a weird resemblance to Asuka. Strangers can look alike, can't they? Never mind what she might have been in the past, though. The past is dead; Neu is Neu and that's all there is to it. It's tough but I really don't think it makes the blindest bit of difference who Neu might have been before Masafumi and Schreient got their claws into her. It's not like Kritiker cared about who Weiss were except to make sure we weren't going to kill one another and considering how many times I've felt like strangling Aya since I met him that wasn't a major consideration either.

What if she really was duped? I'm beginning to think she wasn't, but even if she was knowing it doesn't help if there's nothing to be done about it. Looks to me like she's playing the part of Asuka like Kase acted the role of the man I remembered, and she's playing Youji for a fool with it. Cynical of me, ain't it?

Doesn't Youji realize by now that no good ever comes to us out of an unexpected reunion? I've lost a friend that way. Omi discovered and lost his family and they were people he had nothing in common with, people he could only despise (Omi and the Takatori family… where's the connection? I don't think I've ever met Mamoru Takatori because the kid doesn't exist. _Omi_ exists). How can Youji running into Asuka's double in the bizarre form of a member of Schreient be any different? I'd like to think it's possible but the precedent really ain't good. Reunions should be happy things but Weiss always screws it up for us.

But Kase joined Creeper because he wanted to and all I did was make things a little bit easier. The Takatoris would have been out of their collective tree never mind what Omi was getting up to. Neu would have been Neu regardless.

The sick joke isn't that they went the way they did, it's the one which made us their enemies as opposed to four other guys. It didn't have to be me here, it could have been someone who'd never met Kase and wouldn't care what happened to him if it stopped Creeper from fucking up other people's lives. If Youji hadn't joined Weiss, Neu of Schreient would have meant nothing to us except as an enemy. Yeah, I know it wasn't deliberate but it doesn't feel like an accident. It feels like someone up there has an absolutely fucking warped sense of humor. But what can I do about that save put up with it? I can't do anything about Youji, either.

Youji wants to believe Asuka is alive in Neu and maybe she is, but I doubt it.

She's got him snared; I can't reach him. I could shout at him until I was hoarse, tell him over and over that the woman's probably taking him for a ride and he wouldn't listen to a word of it. He wouldn't listen and all I'd get for my trouble is bruised. Okay. _More_ bruised.

Nothing we can do will make him see sense. I know what it'll take to get Youji to see Neu for what she is rather than what he hopes she might be and that's the same thing it took for me to realize I was the one who was mistaken about Kase, not Manx and Kritiker. She'll have to try and destroy him for him to see what painful experience has me seeing in her now, what Aya and Omi know is there already. She'll have to betray him. God, I really don't want to see that happen to him. I've been there - Hell, I'm _still_ there! This whole thing with Kase's fucked me up, Youji! I've got to live with the knowledge of what we did to one another until the day I die! - and I don't want you to join me. I don't want anyone to.

Nevertheless, he will. Neu is not Kase, Youji is not me, but the only differences are in the details. The pieces might not be the same but the game is. You can't have faith in someone whom life has cast in the part of an adversary no matter who they once were and how much they matter to you.

Maybe Youji doesn't realize it, but Kase wasn't able to betray me because I'm Ken Hidaka and I'm less sophisticated than he is. Kase deceived me because I let myself believe in him and that's absolutely all it took. It wasn't anything to do with me except that I was the idiot who was prepared to trust him. Youji's trusting Neu not to harm him because she might once have been Asuka is no different, really. He trusts her so he's already made the same mistake I did. So much for sophistication!

Youji hit me and why? Because I told him the truth and he didn't want to hear it.

He hit me because he wanted to shut me up. I didn't listen to advice either; Youji's no different than I was in that respect. All he has to do to end this horrible, pointless situation is walk away from Neu, refuse to play by her rules, but he won't because he still believes in her. He can't let go of what he had. He's just as ensnared by trust as I was. I'm sure he left thinking that I didn't understand, but I do. I even know why he hit me. I've been there even if Youji's forgotten I have and doesn't realize he's headed the same way I went. I know what it feels like to have faith in something when it feels like all the world is telling you that you shouldn't. I know what it's like to be deceived. I know what it's like to find something you thought was lost then lose it again, for good.

I'd like to be wrong about Neu but I know, don't ask me how, that I'm not. Hindsight lends events a terrible clarity. Youji's walking into a trap and it's the same bloody trap I fell into! And I fell into it because I'm what he'd call naïve, or stupid by any other name, but what the hell's _his_ excuse? It's bizarre. The worldly, urbane Youji Kudou getting deceived like

like me.

We've been down this road before and once was once too often. I really don't want to be here again watching Youji repeat, for Asuka's sake - _Neu's_… you tell me what to call her, Youji, because I really don't know any more - the mistakes he couldn't believe I was so stupid to make over Kase, watching him get willingly duped in the same way I was. But I am, and he is, and what can I do about it? Nothing. Nothing at all.

All I can do for Youji is understand him and that won't change a thing.

ende -


End file.
